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# Looking for a new leader
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/looking-for-a-new-leader/
- Published: 2008-05-31T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T19:44:56.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Education, Malibu, #archive-import

This past week, Q-line asked: Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Superintendent Dianne Talarico is widely expected to leave her post at the end of the school year. What should the Board of Education look for when selecting her successor?

Here are your responses: “THE NEW SUPERINTENDENT IS supposed to be transparent and honest with everyone. The current superintendent should be fired.”

“HOW ABOUT HONESTY, INTEGRITY AND the ability to listen to all sides of the problem?”

“THEY SHOULD GET SOMEONE WHO has absolutely no connection whatsoever with the school district and who has no idea what the City Council is like so they have no idea what they’re getting into.”

“FOR MANY REASONS, LIFETIME dedication to a school district is not often seen today. Educators, businessmen and ordinary individuals are searching for greener pastures. I suspect the pot will have to be sweetened to make the position more palatable.”

“ALL THE MAJOR POSITIONS IN OUR town — School Superintendent, City Manager and Police Chief — should be people raised and who went to school here. They are the only ones who really know our town or even care.”

“I THINK THE PERFECT QUALITIES WILL be those of Data, the android on Star Trek. He has superhuman patience, never lies, and faces all problems with a calm, com-monsense approach. There will be no hugging or sitting around the intellectual campfires, holding hands and massaging the giant egos for him. But when you have the deceptive, politically correct, affirmative gender and racial action weak sisters on the School Board, you can’t have a strong superintendent. How can you blame the board when Santa Monica is full of whining parents who feel no amount of tax dollars are enough to teach their children. Data, even with his positronic brain, would have a difficult time educating the intellectual dullards in this town.”

“SOMEONE WHO HAS NOTHING TO DO with Arnold Schwarzenegger in any way, shape or form. Period.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 31, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/053108.pdf?ref=smdp.com)